Who here rents a property out?

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I would like to pick your brain. I have previous business experience, know a reputable real estate attorney, have a good CPA, and know of some agents. So I have a team. I also have a contractor/handyman in my network.

All that said. . .

A. Would you recommend it?

B. Difficulty of managing? Scale of 0 to 10? (managing = finding suitable, credit-worthy tenants, repairs)

C. Opinion on Section 8?

D. Thoughts on pets?

There may come a time where I have an offer from my parents to purchase their vacation mobile home near Jersey Shore. . .this is actually my dream to take it over. . .but. . .it makes me a bit nervous to just have that be my singular place of residence without flood insurance. That said, I think flood ins. deductibles are 15K (I could be wrong) so I am not sure it makes sense to actually have flood ins. either.

On the flip side, it's actually on some high ground and even during Hurricane Sandy, water never even made it up to the roadway, let alone in yard and up to level of trailer entrance (it's on cinder blocks)

But owning a "back-up" property (rental) that I could re-take posession of at expiration of lease makes some sense for me, along with income potential.

Probably a re-hashed discussion here at SA, but I appreciate the re-engagement.

[97guns]

i love rental income so i can only recommend it. i have an awesome property manager in place and the only thing i manage now a days is my bank account once a month. i rent to pets but no large dogs, had a lady with a bunch of cats that pee'd and pooped in the attic and it took a few dollars and someone elses time to rectify it.

the area i rent in most tenants have no credit, they lost their houses and now rent from me. some of my managers best practices for placing great tenants because their credit is shot:


1) when they come to look the place over let them go in while you look their car over. if they have a bunch of crap in the car chances are they are going to live in your house like that. check the tags and make sure they are up to date, is the car beat to hell? is it dirty, are the tires bald, the vehicle will tell a lot.

2) after they fill out the application he will drive by their current residence, again if they are living like pigs pass on them. could be cars on the lawn, garbage in the yard, multiple vehicles or run down house.

3) when he calls their place of employment he always talks business with them first, if it is a restaurant he calls and asks about the menu then asks about the individual making sure the business is legit.


i can not say enough about my real estate holdings, the tax breaks are unbelievable. in my eyes my money is free money because i dont work for my money anymore, my money is making me money

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1) when they come to look the place over let them go in while you look their car over. if they have a bunch of crap in the car chances are they are going to live in your house like that. check the tags and make sure they are up to date, is the car beat to hell? is it dirty, are the tires bald, the vehicle will tell a lot.

2) after they fill out the application he will drive by their current residence, again if they are living like pigs pass on them. could be cars on the lawn, garbage in the yard, multiple vehicles or run down house.

3) when he calls their place of employment he always talks business with them first, if it is a restaurant he calls and asks about the menu then asks about the individual making sure the business is legit.

Holy cow.

He's good. Real good.

Thanks.

[97guns]

yep he is on the ball and i am very lucky to have him in my "network". when i get a vacancy he fills it immediately, he only charges me $75 to install a water heater that would cost me $1000+ from a plumber.

you must have read the millionaire real estate investor if you are referring to your network.

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Nope. ..never read it.

Just know you need to assemble a team to make it a go.

[TBH]

I have one rental property, purchased in 2014. Like 97guns, it's in an area where all the renters have poor credit. If they didn't, they would just buy a house because owning is much cheaper than renting. So I looked for someone who had poor credit for a good reason. The tenants I chose had had a medical emergency and most of the bad marks on their credit were relatively small medical bills, or very old store cards. They had some current accounts that were paid on time. So it was clear to me that they were on the upswing. I'm expecting that they'll rent my house only as long as it will take them to clean up their credit, and then they'll probably buy something.

Owning rental properties has always been a dream of mine, but it took me a long time to convince my spouse (and also figure out how to swing it financially.)

Buying the house was extremely stressful. The previous owner was a total deadbeat, so the purchase process was aggravating. Getting financing was hard because our income fluctuates a lot and the lender was spooked by that, and they wouldn't count the potential rent as income because we'd never been landlords before. So we had to qualify based on our employment income alone, taking into account that we also have a mortgage on our primary home. Then once the purchase was done our contractor was having all kinds of personal drama and took forever to finish the necessary renovations.

BUT. Once all was said and done, and the property rented (the tenants moved in about 2.5 months after we closed) it all felt worth it. I am managing the rental myself, but it's been pretty smooth.

The tenants do have a cat. I took a slightly larger deposit because of it, and asked their previous landlord whether the cat had caused any problems.

I would love to buy another one in the same area, but when we did this first one we spent more of our liquid cash than we should have. It all worked out, and we've rebuilt our emergency fund, but this time I don't want to buy something unless we can do it without touching our emergency fund. Also, I don't think we can qualify for another mortgage because I changed jobs, and because we still don't have two years of landlording under our belts. So this time I would like to try to save up until I can buy the next property for cash, which will take me a while.